


This One's For You

by meyretzka (stuckay)



Series: Inevitable [3]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 11:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9722264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuckay/pseuds/meyretzka
Summary: After Max played matchmaker for Joshua and Julian the two of them want to return the favour. But what if Max doesn't want that? And what if his plan to stop them turns into something more than he bargained for?Canon Divergent AU set after Closer.





	1. Unsere Fans

**Author's Note:**

> This work can be read separately from the rest of the series but I’d recommend reading at least the epilogue of Closer to get a better understanding of the story.

‘He traced his tongue over Max’s lips, biting down gently. His hands came up to grab Max’s hips, holding him close and-’

Max closed the tab and put his phone aside, letting out an exasperated sigh. He didn’t need to read on to know how it continued. Ever since Julian and Joshua had told him about the existence of ‘Meyretzka fanfiction’ at lunch this afternoon he had already read enough of them to know the formula by now. It was concerning.

Not the fact that it existed. He knew that it was typical for fans to write their own stories about their favourite characters and even though he had been surprised to find out that it also was common practise in the football fandom he really should’ve seen it coming. The rules are simple: where there is a fandom, there will be fanfiction. And as much as it might unsettle him to see his own name being used in one of them, there was nothing he could do to change that. It had been his decision to be a professional football player so now he would have to live with the consequences of being famous.

No, what really disturbed him was that for some reason he had been sitting in this armchair in his and Leon’s room, browsing the Football RPF tag on Archive of Our Own for almost an hour now. Funny thing is, if you had said those exact words to him yesterday, he would’ve thought you were speaking another language altogether.

Yet, when Julian had shown him an excerpt of one of the fanfictions involving him and Leon, he had made a mental note of the website it was on - just so he could check if it was legit or if Ju wanted to troll him - and he still didn’t know what had possessed him but after their afternoon training session he had looked it up on his phone.

And what he found would probably scar him for life. To sum it up: No one was safe. There were no exceptions. Everyone got shipped with everyone; sometimes even people that have met maybe once in real life. To Max’s relief there weren’t nearly as many ‘Meyretzka’ fics as for example the ones that involved Basti and Poldi, which were _a lot_. But he still caught himself reading one after the other until he regretted ever making friends with Jo and Ju.

In some way, it was like a car accident: he didn’t want to look at it but at the same time he just couldn’t look away. These stories intrigued him but he couldn’t explain why. And the worst thing about it was that Joshua was right. They really were very well written and constructed in such a way that you just had to keep reading. It was fucking addictive.

What had these two done?

What was even worse was that he wasn’t sure if he should address this matter – if it even was a ‘matter’. Julian had sent Leon links to some of the fanfics so he definitely knew about them and apparently, his reaction had been kind of positive, according to Ju. But maybe he had just played it cool because he didn’t want them to know how appalled he was so they wouldn’t constantly tease him about it, like they had done with Max.

Either way Max was sure confronting him directly would be something different altogether. Leon’s real life reaction wouldn’t be as smooth and laid-back as he maybe had wanted it to come off in his text to Julian. He’d either get embarrassed and act like it didn’t bother him or he’d get confused and suspicious about why it bothered Max so much. None of those options were things Max was particularly keen on experiencing. No, this was nothing he wanted to discuss with Leon and even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t have any idea how to go about it. Leon hadn’t brought it up to him so why should he be the one to do it?

Leaning back in his chair, Max glared at his phone like it had betrayed him simply by giving him access to every damn thing the internet had to offer and raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. He was growing more and more annoyed at himself for even thinking about this whole thing so much. This wasn’t something that needed talking about! They were just some stories a few deluded fans had made up, nothing more! Why did he care so much, anyway?

He needed to stop overthinking this whole thing or else he wouldn’t be able to even look at his best friend without feeling awkward. And besides, he had other, more important, concerns to take care of right now. He had to stay focused on his performance during training and matches if he wanted Löw to continue calling him up for the senior team. Some stupid fanfictions had no place in his life right now! Or ever!

He sighed again. The more he thought about all of this, the more he wished Julian and Joshua had never told him that fanfiction of him even existed in the first place. Damn those two for making him aware of it! And damn himself for having absolutely no restraint or sense of self-preservation!

-

After having despaired for a few more minutes and deciding he could use some food he had made his way to the hotel’s restaurant. He was once again sitting across from Joshua and Julian, even though he didn’t know why he had thought that’d be a good idea. These two were starting to get on his nerves so much that he genuinely contemplated looking for somewhere else to sit.

For some reason they had decided it would be funny to tease him all the time for whatever reason they could come up with at the moment. He was pretty sure it was retribution for his involvement in their love story. Although that didn’t explain why they didn’t bother Marco and Mario as well, as it had been their plan to begin with. Or Manu and Thomas. Or André.  Or Jules. He was honestly beginning to regret ever having agreed to play matchmaker for these two.

To make things worse, Leon still hadn’t returned from his consultation with Müller-Wohlfahrt. Even though he was basically back to full strength and health, the coaching staff still wanted him to undergo one last examination so it looked like Max would have to endure this dinner all by himself. Great. At least with Leon he too would’ve had some fun.

“So, have you and Leon started looking for your soulmates, yet?” Julian shot him a curious glance.

Max huffed. “How the hell could we do that if we’re about to be shut off from society for the whole next week?” He was kind of joking, not taking this conversation seriously, but apparently Ju and Jo were quite earnest.

“Well, there are a number of unconventional ways to get to know people. Who says it has to be love at first sight?”

Max was really not in the mood to discuss his non-existent love life with them so he quickly evaded it. “Whatever. I’m gonna go get more lasagne.” He got up to make his way over to the buffet and queued up behind Serge.

When he came back he saw the screen of his phone, which he had left lying on the table, lighting up, indicating a new notification. He set down his plate and picked it up only to find several red fire icons staring back at him. Slowly, he glanced up, putting on his best menacing expression. “What is this?”

“We thought we’d help you with your search for true love.” Julian gave him an innocent smile while Joshua beside him was barely containing his laughter.

“Are you fucking insane? You can’t just put my face on a dating app for everyone to see! This could put my whole career at risk!” Their smiles froze and turned into shocked expressions. “I can’t believe this! Do you two know how to use your brains or are they just there to fill the void in your heads?”

“Max, that’s not what we-“

“No! You know what? Shame on you for calling yourselves my friends! Fuck you! ”

With that, he stood up and left.

-

Still fuming, he practically stormed into the room he shared with Leon and slammed the door behind him. “Fucking assholes…”

“Who are?”

Max jumped in surprise but quickly regained his composure when he saw that it was just Leon who was lying on his bed, one hand still holding up his phone in front of him. At Max’s sudden entrance he had looked up with a questioning expression. He put down his phone and propped himself up on his elbow, his body turned towards the door.

“Jo and Ju. I swear to God, if they don’t stop I might kill them one day!”

“Woah easy, Tiger! No one is getting killed. Tell me what happened?” Leon sat up properly and waited for Max to explain what they did.

“They took my phone during dinner when I wasn’t looking, signed me up on Tinder and just matched me with random people. Can you believe that? I’d already gotten six ‘matches’ when I came back to it.”

Leon chuckled to himself. “You seem to be quite popular with the girls, then.”

“You think that’s funny?” Max hissed. “What if someone on there recognised me? I can already see the BILD headlines: ‘Young Schalke player desperate for love.’ No, I will not put up with this! I need to get back at them!”

Leon sighed. “Alright, I agree, that was quite a nasty move, but what exactly do you think you can do about it?”

Max fell silent. He sat down on the edge of his bed, facing Leon, and pondered possible paybacks. Leon was right. He couldn’t do anything about it. Any snappy remark or act of revenge would just result in another prank that would be even worse and things would go back and forth like this forever. And even though he pretty much hated both of them right now, he knew that he’d regret starting a feud with them because he still considered them his friends. Kind of.

No, what he needed was something that would shut them up for good. Something that wouldn’t provide them with a target. Something that they wouldn’t expect. Something…

A sudden thought crossed his mind and he quickly tried to push it back to where it came from but no matter what else he tried to think of, it kept coming back. He couldn’t deny that it was a pretty brilliant plan, one that could actually work, and apparently also the only useful thing he could come up with right now. But he would need help for that one.

Dread ran through his body as he slowly lifted his head to look at Leon, not sure how the other would react to his suggestion. “I have an idea but you need to promise not to laugh or get angry, okay?” Leon furrowed his brows in confusion but nodded, signalling him to go on. Max took a deep breath. Not even two hours ago he had sworn to never bring up this topic and yet here he was, about to make his presumably biggest mistake ever. He couldn’t believe that he was actually suggesting this but great ideas demanded great sacrifices. “Okay, um… Ju showed you these stories about us, these uh, fanfictions, right?” He cringed at his own awkwardness.

“Yes…” Max didn’t miss the underlying questioning in Leon’s response and immediately cursed himself for thinking that this could somehow work. But there was no turning back now, was there?

“So I was thinking: what if we just act like we’re dating since that apparently seems plausible for a lot of people anyway? That way they will finally stop bugging us and accusing us of being jealous of their relationship. Plus, the fact that we ‘kept it a secret’ from them will probably annoy the hell out of them, too.” He watched his best friend’s reaction closely, ready to backtrack any second. “Only if it doesn’t make you uncomfortable of course!” He added quickly.

Leon regarded him sceptically. “Are you sure they’d believe that? Don’t you think they would notice we’re lying?” He shifted closer to the edge of his bed. “Like how would you explain keeping it a secret from them and not having told them any sooner?”

Max grinned. The fact that Leon didn’t dwell on the fanfics and seemed more concerned about the believability of their charade than having to pretend to be gay lifted a weight off his shoulders he hadn’t even noticed before. So he _was_ overthinking this whole fanfiction thing. And Leon already worrying about the details of their ‘plan’ instead of being offended at him for even suggesting such a thing was an even better sign that this might just work out.

“Don’t worry. We’ll just tell them that if we had told them, then sooner or later the media would’ve known as well and we simply didn’t want that.”

Leon still looked wary. “I don’t know… That’s quite a commitment, you know that, right? To keep up this façade at all times except for when we’re alone.

“I know but come on! It’s just for this week. You gotta help out your best friend here!” Max could see Leon’s reluctance slowly dissolving so he pushed a little further. “I’m suffering and if I suffer that means you’ll suffer as well because moody me is not fun to be around and you know it.” He gave him his best puppy eyes, hoping that’ll close the deal.

Leon seemed to consider Max’s proposal for a few more seconds before finally agreeing with a shake of his head. “I can’t believe I’m doing this… You owe me big time!”

“Yes!” Max pumped his fist in celebration of his ‘victory’, ignoring the second part of Leon’s agreement for now. Buying him pizza wouldn’t be enough, he knew that, but that was something to worry about later. “Dude, you’re the best bro one could ever wish for!”

“Yeah, yeah alright.” Leon quickly brushed off his enthusiasm. “But-” he held up his index finger in warning “-I have one condition: No kissing!”

Max smirked. “Aw, don’t tell me you don’t want some of this!” He puckered his lips and made smooching sounds, slowly closing up on him.

Leon snorted and shoved him away. “Jerk!” He stood up and made his way over to the en-suite bathroom. “You better start working on a plan so we’ll come across convincingly.”

-

When Max woke the next morning Leon was already awake, rummaging in his suitcase before pulling out a t-shirt and putting it on. When he turned around his face split into a smile. “Good Morning, sunshine!”

Max rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Morning…”

Leon went on to search through his toiletries bag. Max had shared a room with Leon on multiple occasions throughout his career, starting with the U16 when they first began traveling for away matches, but order and tidiness somehow still seemed to be foreign concepts to him.

His hands still buried in the bag he spoke. “So, have you thought about how we’re going to pull off this genius plan of yours?” He looked up at Max expectantly.

“I, um… I just thought we’d do some of the normal couple stuff, like holding hands, gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes, you know the drill.” He sat up so he could get a better look at his friend. “I mean, we both had girlfriends before so we know how it works and it shouldn’t be that much of a difference if it’s two guys, should it?”

“Doubt it.” He went back to his toiletries. “Not sure if I can gaze lovingly into your eyes without cracking up, though.”

Max laughed and threw a pillow at Leon’s head but missed it by a few inches. “You know what I meant, idiot.” Then he got up and walked over to the bathroom to do his morning routine.

“Hey, I was about to go in there!”

“Sorry,” Max shouted through the locked door, “but if it takes you this long to find your shampoo or whatever you deserve to wait a few more minutes.”

“You better not push your luck, Maximilian! Otherwise I might reconsider my involvement in your charade.”

Max finished drying his hands and face with a towel before unlocking the door and opening it to squint at Leon. “Are you gonna keep blackmailing me until this is over?”

Leon shrugged. “Depends…”

“On what?”

“On whether you behave and don’t try any weird shit that would haunt us forever.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. But I do know that you always get us into the worst possible trouble. I’m just taking precautions!”

Max sighed. “Fine!” He opened the door wider and stepped outside to let Leon have the bathroom.

What did he get himself into?

-

They entered the breakfast room holding hands and to Max’s surprise, not as many people as he would’ve thought turned their heads to gape at them with open mouths. In fact, no one took notice of them. That was until Joshua saw them and nudged Julian to get his attention. He took them in, his face scrunched up with confusion until his eyes landed on their hands. His eyebrows shot up and Max had to suppress the shit-eating grin that wanted to spread across his face.

He dragged Leon along behind him and headed in their direction. He sat down opposite the two of them, Leon to his right and put their joined hands on display on top of the table. Maybe it was a bit extra but it certainly served to get a rise out of his teammates.

“What are you doing?” Julian hissed across the table. “Is this a bet?”

“No, we’re just tired of hiding.” Max deadpanned, trying really hard not to burst out laughing in front of them. Maybe he wasn’t that good of an actor as he’d always thought.

“Excuse me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what that means. We’re a couple, have been for a while actually. We just hid it from everybody.”

“Ha, good one!” Julian started laughing but when neither Max nor Leon joined in his smile faltered before his expression turned sober again.

“Wait, you’re actually serious?” He shot an unsure glance at Joshua who also seemed to be in disbelief. “Then why did you let us believe you were looking for a girlfriend?”

“We didn’t want to juggle with behaving normal around all of you and acting like we’re just bros whenever cameras are around. We would’ve slipped up eventually, that’s just how it is. I’m honestly baffled that it hasn’t happened to you two yet.”

Joshua furrowed his brows and leaned forward a bit. “But why are you telling us now?”

Suddenly, Max’s mind went blank. “We… er…-” Shit, they should’ve talked this through instead of just winging it. Why hadn’t Leon forced him to work out a plan first?

“We knew we couldn’t hide it forever so we figured now would be a good time.” Leon, who had been unusually silent so far, thankfully saved him from embarrassing himself any further.

“Exactly!” Max nodded eagerly, adding ‘whatever he wants, just buy it!’ to his mental list of favours he owed Leon so far.

Leon continued. “When you showed us those fanfictions we knew it wouldn’t take much longer until you’d start figuring it out anyway so we decided that we should tell you before this whole thing got messier than it had to be.”

Julian shook his head. “But you-” he looked at Max “-seemed so distressed about anyone even considering the possibility of you two being a thing.”

Max huffed in what he hoped was a dismissive manner. “That was an act! Obviously, I didn’t want you to find out, duh! Leon would’ve killed me if I had given away anything without talking things through with him first.”

“Oh yeah, I would have! This-” he lifted his left hand that was still linked with Max’s to emphasise his point “-could, after all, put our entire careers at stake. Aren’t you worried about that at all? You know, that one day the press will get wind of your relationship and you’ll be subjected to all sorts of hostilities and discrimination. Just that alone was a major reason keeping me from coming out, to be honest. Fans can quickly turn into enemies if you don’t conform to what’s considered ‘normal’.”

“Tell me about it!” Thankfully, Jo immediately responded to Leon’s argument. “The homophobia in this business is off the charts!” They seemed to have forgotten their scepticism which, on one hand stopped them from pestering Max and Leon with further questions but on the other hand started a conversation about the struggles of gay football players, which Max didn’t really feel qualified to talk about but thanks to Leon he somehow managed to get off easily. It was actually quite interesting to learn what issues his friends were facing and he felt kind of bad about faking it while, for them, it was a daily reality.

-

Back at their room Leon immediately let go of his hand and Max could feel that something was off about him.

“Well, that went surprisingly well, didn’t it?” He tried a smile.

Leon stared at him in disbelief. “I honestly don’t know how you plan on surviving the next few days but let’s pray no one pays too close attention to us, otherwise we’re screwed.”

“Wha-“

“Jeez Max, your excuses were so bad and you had absolutely no idea what you were talking about! I saved your ass out there! You can thank me for that later! With a new PlayStation! The white edition!”

Max winced at Leon’s sudden outburst of anger. Even though everything had turned out okay in the end he did sort of fuck up and he guessed he deserved being yelled at for that. He really should have thought this through. “Look, I’m sorry! I’m sorry I dragged you into this. And I’m sorry I didn’t plan this properly. Please, just don’t bail on me right now!”

Leon plopped onto his bed and shook his head. “I didn’t say I’d bail on you. I keep my word but please, for the love of God, think about what you’re doing next time, and inform yourself before you even attempt to pull off something like that again!”

Max nodded. “I will! And I’ll get you your PlayStation and whatever else you want. Again, I’m sorry. I should’ve listened to you .”

“Oh really?” Leon’s tone was dripping with sarcasm but his face showed a hint of a smile.

“C’mon, I’m trying to make a sincere apology here.”

“I know. Come here!” Leon stood up, made his way over to Max who was still standing by the door, and pulled him into hug. “You’ll be the death of me one day, you know that, right?” he said over his shoulder.

“Yeah…” Max laughed, relieved that they didn’t start a fight over something stupid like this. “I think we’re gonna be each other’s deaths.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The excerpt at the beginning is taken from one of my other fics [What are the odds?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8500486).  
> Also, I have no idea how Tinder actually works so bear with me please.


	2. Du liebst mich nicht

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Logically speaking, he knew that it did him no good to even think such things and he had tried his best to extinguish that feeble glimmer of hope for years but in that moment it was more just the illusion of a relationship that had persuaded him. If he couldn’t have this for real, at least he could pretend for a few days, right? "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooooo.......... uh, at least I didn't give up on it, right?
> 
> It's 2.30am so apologies for any mistakes that occur.
> 
> Big thank you to [Eda](http://youmeafterthegame.tumblr.com/) for motivating me and always being excited to discuss plot points.

“So… you and Max, huh?”

Leon kept running but shot a quick glance at Jules who had fallen in step next to him.

“Uh, yes. Me and Max.”

He turned his attention back on his teammates running in front of him but from the corner of his eye he could see a mischievous grin making its way onto Jules’ face. “Well, finally!” he said with a touch of satisfaction to his voice. “It was about time! You two have been tiptoeing around each other for months. We were about to bet on when you two would finally get it over with and make the first move.”

Leon wanted to laugh at it but choked on it when he realised that Jules was being serious. Did he really say for _months_? What was that supposed to mean?

Of course, it wasn’t news to him that _he_ had been making heart eyes at Max for quite a while now but did Jules want to imply that the feeling was mutual? Haha, good one! Leon would’ve definitely noticed that. Jules must’ve misread the situation completely. And he most likely wasn’t the only one. God, was his crush really so obvious that his teammates were already starting to put up bets? But if so, how come Max hadn’t noticed yet, seeing as he was the object of desire? Or had he? No, he wouldn’t have asked him to fake a relationship if he had known. Max may be-

Jules gently nudged him with his elbow, jolting him out of his stupor. “Dude, you okay?”

Leon turned to look at him. He had been so caught up in his thoughts that he’d almost forgotten about Jules but his friend was still looking at him like he expected some sort of reaction from him. He gulped, unsure what to say and nodded.

“Yeah, um…” Suddenly, he realised what an amazing opportunity this was. If people had been suspecting that something was going on between him and Max anyway, why not use it to their advantage? It could actually help them seem more believable without having to do anything to prove it. “About that… we weren’t waiting for the other to make the first move. We’ve actually been together for a while.” He tried to sound as casual as possible and amazingly enough it seemed to work.

“Whaaat?”

It took Leon a few seconds to notice that Jules had stopped running abruptly but then he slowed down and turned around. His friend was standing a few steps behind him and stared at him, his eyes widened in shock. “How long? And why didn’t I know about that? I always tell you about my love life!”

Okay, it might have worked a bit too well. Jules seemed genuinely upset and Leon’s mind started racing, struggling to come up with an appropriate response.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t think of anything - Leon usually prided himself on thinking quickly and being able to improvise in difficult situations, on and off the pitch - but this time he needed to be careful with his words.

He cursed himself for not having forced Max to discuss the details of their ‘relationship’ and he cursed Max for thinking that they could just pull this off without any preparation. They had absolutely no game plan for things like this. Of course, he could just make something up but what if Max had already spread some different information and their stories didn’t add up? No matter what Leon would say now, anything could blow their cover.

For a split second he considered telling Jules that he had no idea but he quickly discarded that idea as that would’ve made him suspicious for sure. Which couple has no idea for how long they’ve been together? No, the only option was to bluff and hope for the best. And then tell Max about it as soon as possible.

But just as Leon opened his mouth to mutter an answer Löw shouted at them with the instruction to divide into groups of two and Leon had never been so grateful for getting yelled at with a megaphone in his entire life. Before Jules could even offer him to do their assigned stretching exercises together Max had appeared by Leon’s side and, with a “You don’t mind if I borrow him, do you?” and a charming smile, dragged him over to where the rest of the team was gathering in the centre of the pitch, leaving behind Jules to look for another warm-up partner himself.

“Are we even on rescuing each other from embarrassing situations?” Max murmured as soon as they were out of earshot, only loud enough for Leon to hear. He stopped a few metres away from everyone else and turned to face him.

“What makes you think I was in an embarrassing situation?” He extended his arms and placed them on Max’s shoulders, signalling for Max to do the same by impatiently drumming with his fingers.

Max gave him an ‘Are you kidding me?’ expression but mirrored his stance and reached up to put his hands on Leon’s shoulders before they leaned against each other to stretch their calfs. “Because you looked completely helpless just now and I guess I’m right in assuming that Jules wasn’t just surprised to find out about your giant collection of Panini stickers, was he?”

“Well, if we had planned this glorious plan of yours more thoroughly I wouldn’t have gotten in this situation at all!” Leon hissed. A hurt expression flickered across Max’s face, obviously taken aback by Leon’s harsh tone, and Leon immediately regretted his words. He was annoyed, true, but not only at Max. Rather at himself. The fact that they were already struggling to keep up this lie wasn’t solely Max’s fault, he knew that, even though it had been his idea. But continuing to blame his best friend for everything that went wrong along the way would only result in more complications than Leon was willing to deal with right now. He had agreed to it, fully aware that it wouldn’t be an easy task to accomplish, and now they had to go through with this as a team if they wanted to prevent any future dilemmas and get out of it without any repercussions.

He could’ve, of course, avoided all of this drama by simply not agreeing to help Max and the thing was, Leon had tried to reject the offer - if you could call it that. He really had. In fact, when Max had asked him this favour, his mind had promptly provided him with every possible way in which this could go wrong. But the more he had thought about it and the more Max had given him his irresistible puppy eyes, the louder the voice in the back of his mind had gotten, telling him what kind of once in a lifetime opportunity this was.

Logically speaking, he knew that it did him no good to even think such things and he had tried his best to extinguish that feeble glimmer of hope for years but in that moment it was more just the illusion of a relationship that had persuaded him. If he couldn’t have this for real, at least he could pretend for a few days, right? And as much as he knew that this was a bad idea he just couldn’t deny himself the prospect of getting to treat Max like his actual boyfriend. How could he have possibly resisted that?

He let out an apologetic sigh. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault, it’s just… I didn’t expect this to be such a struggle.”

Max just shrugged, his features softening. “It’s okay. You’re not wrong, are you? I probably deserve being yelled at by you for what I put you through but I promise to take this extra seriously from now on. Which is why we’re gonna talk things through in detail later, okay? We’ll make up a backstory and work on coming across as believable and all that jazz. Just like you want to.”

“Alright.” Leon agreed, silently thanking all the gods above for making Max come to his senses. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Great! Uh, just try to survive the rest of the day, though. You can’t rely on your personal superhero to save your ass all the time.” And with that, his typical shit eating grin was back on his face.

Leon would’ve slapped his arm had his hands not been occupied already. He resorted to verbal retaliation instead. “Asshole. You’re way too short to be a superhero anyway. You’d be a sidekick at most.”

“Excuse me, do you mean to tell me Ant-Man is a sidekick?”

“Well, if you watched Civil Wa-”

“Anyways, back to the point!” Max quickly cut him off and Leon had to supress a smile at his friend’s insecurity about his height. It was quite an endearing feature but somehow Max failed to see that. “Tell me what exactly you and Jules talked about so we can start working on damage control.”

Leon shook his head to indicate that Max had no reason to be concerned. “There’s no damage control needed. Not yet, at least. He just asked me if we’re really dating now. I guess he believed that we got together like yesterday or something.” He deliberately left out the part where Jules had told him that the others had already put up bets because apparently they had been acting like a couple for months. “Well, I said yes and that we have been for a while already, just like we told Jo and Ju, right? But he got upset that I haven’t told him sooner since he always talks to me about his love life, which by the way I couldn’t care less about, but whatever.” He added an eye roll for emphasis. “So he wanted to know for how long I’ve been keeping it a secret from him but before I had the time to come up with something you came around and saved me, thankfully.”

“Hah, who’s the sidekick now?”

“Yeah alright, you’re not a sidekick. But that’s beside the point. What’s important is that we discuss these kinds of minor details so we don’t end up telling different things to the same people. Our story has to be consistent.”

Max opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by Löw barking at them from the sidelines. “Hey, Max! Leon! Did you not hear me?”

They looked around and noticed that the others had already moved on with their warm-up exercises, now sitting on the ground to stretch their legs and the two of them were the only ones still left standing. Their teammates stared at them with blatant curiosity, and Leon quickly sat down without saying a word, causing Max to follow suit.

-

Back in their room Max called dibs on using the shower first and Leon was too exhausted to argue about it even though he was soaked in sweat and felt pretty dirty himself. He slumped onto his bed and listened to the sound of running water coming from the bathroom. Focusing on the water was relaxing at first until he realised that Max was completely naked, not even 5 metres away, only separated by a wall and a door, and without wanting to his mind wandered to places not unfamiliar to him but entirely inappropriate for this situation. He couldn’t greet Max with a boner. That would prompt some rather uncomfortable teasing, wouldn’t it?

So in order to distract himself he tried to steer his thoughts towards the problem at hand which was playing his best friend’s boyfriend convincingly while simultaneously trying to deal with actually being in love with him. Which, admittedly, wasn’t steering his thoughts that far away.

It baffled him that Max still hadn’t caught up on his crush on him, or at least on the fact that he was gay, though he supposed one thing would inevitably come along with the other.

Especially after he had contributed so much to this morning’s conversation with Ju and Jo he would’ve thought that by now Max would finally start to realise it. Did he think Leon was that good of an actor? That he could just start an in-depth discussion about what’s it like being a gay football player and fool everyone so easily if he wasn’t gay himself? Maybe the concept of having a best friend that wasn’t straight was just too foreign for him. Leon wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.

It was clear that this ‘thing’ they were doing wasn’t something that meant anything to Max. The way he had struggled to even ask him to do this with him, as if the idea of the two of them together made him incredibly uncomfortable, was telling enough for Leon. For Max, this was just a means to an end. And why would it be anything else? What exactly had Leon hoped for? That Max would confess his undying love to him? Well, he better get a reality check real quick.

The worst thing was that all of this was occupying his mind when it absolutely shouldn’t. He should be focusing on football and nothing else. But how could he?

Leon startled when the door got unlocked with a click and Max stepped out with only a towel wrapped around his hips. “Ah, showers can work wonders. I feel as good as new!”

“Was about time!” Leon jumped off his bed and hurriedly headed for the bathroom before locking the door behind him and turning the shower to extra cold.

When he stepped back out of the bathroom a few minutes later, he already felt a lot better and refreshed. Showers really do work wonders sometimes. Max was sitting on the edge of his bed, still not fully clothed even though he should’ve had enough time to do so, wearing only his boxers and a pair of socks, and stared down at his phone.

“What’s so gripping that it requires all of your attention?” Leon asked jokingly while making his way over to him.

Max quickly turned off his phone and put it down next to him. “Um, nothing.” He said with a small shake of his head. “So… shall we talk strategy?”

“Yes!” Leon agreed. They really had to get this over with lest they run into even bigger difficulties so he welcomed that Max was taking the initiative like that and cut right to the chase.

“Alright!” Max did a 90 degree turn while swinging his legs onto the bed to sit cross-legged and patted the space in front of him. “Come sit, then.”

Leon sat down across from Max, mirroring his position and for a second he felt like they were back to being 12 year-old boys once again, sitting in his old tree house to trade their precious Pokémon cards.

“So what do you have in mind?” Max started fiddling with the blanket to distract his hands. He did that sometimes when he was nervous or needed to focus and Leon hated himself for knowing that.

“Um, well, first of all, I think we already established that there will be no kissing.” His voice went up at the end as if he wanted to make sure they were on the same page here.

“Yeah no, don’t worry, bro. I was never planning on going _that_ far.” He let out an awkward laugh as if Leon was crazy for even thinking about that.

Leon tried to ignore the small sting right beneath his ribcage and carried on. “Okay, then we should determine some basic facts. Like when we started dating, who made the first move, et cetera.”

“How about the 7th of August?” He stopped playing with the fabric and lifted his head to look at him.

Leon furrowed his brows questioningly.

“Our shirt numbers.” Max explained. “So it’s easy to remember.”

“Don’t you think that’s also easy to figure out for the others, though?”

“Nah, I doubt they’ll ask for the exact date and even if they do, we can still claim that it was a coincidence and that we haven’t even noticed it.”

Leon was still a bit doubtful but he had to admit that a date that they had some sort of connection to was better than some kind of random one they would most likely forget sooner or later. “Alright then, that would make it about two months of dating.” That even seemed plausible considering the fact that they pretended to have kept it a secret from everyone.

“Moving on,” Max continued. “I definitely made the first move because seeing you trying to pick up girls is literally one of the most cringeworthy things I’ve ever had to witness and no one would believe us if we told them it was you.”

Leon couldn’t argue against that even though he would’ve loved to tell him that that’s probably because he never really had any interest in actually picking up any girls and only did it for the sake of appearance because his friends always pressured him to do it. Instead, he shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “Fair enough.”

He had to admit that he has never been one to take action quickly, even with guys, but that might also be down to the fact that he was a famous footballer and could risk being outed if he so much as let himself be seen in a gay bar. Still, he didn’t know where Max got the self-confidence to just go out there and hit on girls. He was way too shy for anything that involved approaching strangers, regardless of gender, which was one more reason why he looked so awkward doing it.

He was just glad that it also seemed to excuse the fact that he never took any of the girls home. All of his friends just thought he was so bad at flirting that none of the girls he talked to wanted to leave with him. They even offered to be his wingmen but he always declined, claiming he wanted to ‘earn’ it by himself or not at all. All hail fragile masculinity!

He didn’t know how long he could continue like that until the others would have enough and just pay a girl to go out with him, though. If Joshua and Julian went as far as to create a Tinder profile for Max, he was afraid to even think about what his friends could do to get him a date. He shuddered.

“Are you even listening?” Max asked, regarding him confusedly.

Leon shook his head and forced his eyes, that had been staring into space, to focus on Max again. “What? Sorry, I got distracted.”

“I could see that.” He smirked. “I was just talking about how we need to behave more like a couple and less like bros. Like, we need to be more affectionate towards each other; but subtly. I know this is weird but uh, think of me like you would think of your girlfriend - and then just act like you would with her.”

Leon had absolutely no problem imagining that and he could feel himself blushing at the thought of it. Did that give him a free pass to do all the things he had daydreamed about on so many occasions? Probably not. But it did give him some liberties that he didn’t have previously. And god help him if he didn’t exploit the fuck out of them. “I’m gonna try my best.”

“Good. Anything else we need to have in mind?” It was funny how all of a sudden Max had taken control of the conversation when Leon had been the one who persuaded him to even have it in the first place. Maybe he still felt bad for dragging Leon into this without having thought of the consequences and wanted to make up for it.

“Maybe how we both realised we were in love?”

“Mhh, yeah you’re right…” He pressed his hand to his heart and with his best imitation of an emotionally charged voice he said: “It was the moment when I first witnessed him kissing his girlfriend that I thought: No, this should be me.” He laughed and Leon did his best not to wince. If he ever had any doubts that this was nothing but a joke to Max those were definitely cleared up now. It didn’t come as a surprise but still he hated himself for how much his heart ached. Damn that little flicker of hope that continued to burn even after so many months of hopeless pining! He wanted to scream in Max’s face. Make him understand that this was way more than just a joke to him.

What he said instead was “When have you ever seen me kiss my ex?” which was probably the dumbest thing that has ever come out of his mouth.

“Oh, at that one New Year’s Eve party we went to a few years ago. You know, everybody kissed at midnight and I was single at that time so… yeah. I didn’t have anything else to do except for watch everybody else put their tongues down their significant other’s throat.”

Leon made a face at the all too vivid description and the memories it brought with it. His girlfriend of that time, for he had still thought he was straight, really had tried to put her tongue down his throat and it had been an all over unpleasant sensation. Way too wet and messy, teeth clacking together, saliva everywhere and not arousing in the slightest. Back then he had thought that maybe he just wasn’t into all of that sex stuff everyone else had suddenly seemed to be going crazy about. Oh, what a fool he had been.

Someone knocked on their door and Max jumped off the bed. “I’ll go.”

He opened the door and was greeted by Jonas’ ever cheerful smile. “Hey guys, I-” he stopped and mustered Max in his almost undressed state. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt… whatever you were doing.”

It took a few seconds for Max to catch up. “Oh no! No, we weren’t…” Max laughed awkwardly. “We just showered.” Realising that that might not have made things any clearer, he added: “Seperately.”

Even though he could only see Max’s back (which by the way was a very pleasant sight), Leon knew that he was blushing like hell right now and he had to admit that he got just the slightest amount of satisfaction from it. Nevertheless, he decided to help his friend before he could embarrass himself further and got up to walk over to the door.

“Hey Jonas, what’s up?”

“Hi Leon. The boys wanted to play some pool. Are you two in?”

“Um… yeah, sure! Just give him some time to get dressed.” He said with a small nod in Max’s direction. “We’ll meet you downstairs, okay?”

“Alright, see you in a bit!” Jonas gave a short wave and set off towards the elevators at the end of the hallway. Max closed the door.

“You just missed the perfect chance.” Leon remarked dryly.

“To do what?”

“You know, showering together is usually seen as a couple activity.”

The redness on Max’s cheek that had been slowly fading came back with full force and it was one of the cutest things Leon had ever seen. If he could he would make Max blush like that every day.

-

After Max had finally gotten dressed and had spent at least ten minutes to style his hair to perfection (what for was a mystery to Leon but Max always said that not everyone could have such effortless curls all the time like he did) they made their way downstairs to meet the others in the hotel wing that was specifically separated for them.

Some of their teammates had already started playing and stood around the table, holding their cues and waited for Jerome to make his next move.

“Ah, there you are!” Mats came up to them and held out two cues for them. “You know the rules, right?”

“Yes, of course.” Max accepted the cues and handed one to Leon.

Mats acknowledged that with an enthusiastic smile. “Great! Can I get you something to drink? No alcohol, though. We have a match to play tomorrow.”

“Uh, Coke then?”

“You know, that’s also not good for your body but whatever. Leon?”

“Just water, please.”

“See? He gets it. Good boy!” He patted Leon’s hair before disappearing to get them their drinks which probably just meant that he called some hotel employee and let it be brought to him.

Max turned around to face Leon and rolled his eyes. “What is he? My mother?”

Leon laughed and shook his head. “No, that’s Benni.”

“True.” Max grinned in response and Leon knew that they were both thinking about all the times Max had been fouled and their captain had come to his defence, giving whoever caused him pain a lesson they wouldn’t forget anytime soon. For some reason Benni had always been overly protective of Max. There just seemed to be something about him that made Benni want to take care of him and Leon totally had to agree with him.

“Come on!” Max took his hand and dragged him towards where the others were standing.

“Hey,” he cut in on a conversation between Leroy and Davie, “how long until the next round starts?”

“I think if he keeps going like this, we’ll be done in no time.” Leroy answered, pointing at Jerome.

Leon and Max turned towards the pool table to watch Jerome who was in fact acing it, pocketing one ball after another.

“I’ll join whatever team he’s on.” Max exclaimed.

“Hey… not fair!” Leon complained.

Leroy bent over and nodded towards the door. “Fortunately for you, hashtag Julshua just graced us with their presence so you can both join the same team if you’re fast enough. Thomas is responsible for managing the teams so you better go tell him.”

Not taking any chances they quickly walked over to Thomas who wrote down their names on the right side of the flip chart standing next to him. Then they went back to Leroy and Davie and waited for the current round to finish so they could get in on the next one. In the meantime Mats had turned up to hand them their drinks.

After Jerome was finally finished and both of the teams were sorted, the next round began. Musti started off the game for the opposing team, pocketing two balls before committing a foul. Then it was Leon’s turn but he missed the pocket by only a few centimetres. “Aw, what a pity!” Marco tried to tease him, while coming around the table to find a good position but Leon just shrugged casually. He had never been really good at this but he had Jerome on his team so things couldn’t go too wrong. His main reason for being here wasn’t playing pool anyway.

Ever since Leon and Max had entered the room Leon had watched his teammates and their reactions – or lack thereof. Because that was the thing: No one seemed to bat an eye at them. Usually he would appreciate that but of course, the one time they should all be focusing on them, they… just… don’t. And it wasn’t just right now. Apart from Jules no one had made a remark about them since they showed up hand in hand for breakfast. Either none of them had gotten the memo yet, which was unlikely since rumours were generally spread faster than on a school yard around here, or they really didn’t care enough.

Leon wondered what they were doing wrong. They had always been very affectionate with each other and to be honest, from the outside, it must’ve looked like not much had changed so maybe they were all just used to it that they didn’t think anything had changed. Well, it hadn’t but they were supposed to think it had. That was the whole point of this fake relationship, wasn’t it?

In a moment of sudden courage he decided to take matters into his own hands and without warning he put his arm around Max’s shoulders and pulled him closer to press a soft kiss to the top of his head, hoping it’d look somewhat natural and not staged. For a second he felt Max’s body going rigid and Leon feared his little act of spontaneity might destroy everything but then Max started to relax and even leaned into him a bit. Leon’s heart was hammering against his ribcage and he sincerely hoped Max didn’t notice. And even though he knew that this wasn’t real he couldn’t stop the small smile that was playing around the corners of his mouth. This just felt too good.

After having savoured the feeling for another moment he let his eyes roam about and he definitely sensed some glimpses thrown in their direction here and there so he counted that as a success.

And things seemed to get even better because he saw Jo and Ju coming their way which meant they had definitely witnessed this ‘intimate moment’. Joshua stopped right in front of them with Ju waiting behind him. “Hey, we were just wondering… Have you had your talk, yet?”

Leon furrowed his brows in confusion but it was Max who voiced the question that was going through his head. “Our talk?”

“Oh, so you haven’t… Well, I suppose Löw’s gonna get wind of your relationship rather sooner than later so have fun with that!”

“Jo, it’s your turn!”

He turned around, searching for the voice that called his name to find Sami waving him over and then excused himself. “Sorry, gotta go.”

“Jo, what the hell are you talking about?” Leon hissed after him but Joshua was already halfway around the table.

Max looked up at Julian. “Care to explain?”

Ju sighed. “Löw and his team summoned us right at the beginning of this break to introduce us to ‘The Rules’. Believe me when I tell you that those were the most awkward ten minutes of my life.”

“Wait, what rules?” Leon asked, having trouble keeping up. How come he had never heard of that before?

“Uh, well you know how couples are not an uncommon thing in the NT? Basti and Lukas, Mario and Marco, Jo and me, you two… So I guess one day the coaching staff decided to implement some basic rules for how to behave during IB.”

Max and Leon exchanged a panicked look. Pretending in front of their friends was one thing, but involving Löw was something else entirely, and they both knew it.

“Well, anyways, good luck to you, then!” Ju said before making his way over to his boyfriend, leaving them behind feeling dumbfounded and concerned.

-

Luckily, the rest of the evening passed without any further incidents. They had a short dinner break but then decided to call it quits shortly after since they had their first match coming up tomorrow and needed to be fit.

But after what felt like hours Leon was still staring at the ceiling, even though he couldn’t see anything in the total darkness that surrounded him, and thought about what a mess he’s gotten himself into.

They had minimised the risk of getting busted so that was one less thing that he had to worry about. But that just left more room to ponder the actual problem at hand. Which was that he was still in love with his best friend. Maybe even more so than usual. Pretending to be Max’s boyfriend only confirmed that and even amplified his feelings. Leon was no stranger to pining but now there was this constant ache that just wouldn’t go away. It was the knowledge that none of it was real that was killing him; and the reason why he had insisted on the no kissing rule. Because he needed a reminder that he couldn’t allow himself to get his hopes up. Couldn’t allow himself to get lost in this fantasy. There had to be a limit somewhere; something that would separate reality from dream. And that limit was anything that would make him fall and fall and fall until he’d finally crash, leaving him – and his heart – shattered into a million pieces.

A small sigh escaped his lips. And what if he just cancelled this whole entire thing? Tell Max he’s out and that would be it? Of course, that wouldn’t stop his feelings for him but at least he wouldn’t have to pretend that he wasn’t actually in love with him while pretending to be very much in love with him. He could just go back to yearning from afar. But what would he tell Max?

Max rolled over in his bed and, for a second, the rustling of the sheets disturbed the absolute silence of the room, interrupting Leon’s train of thought.

“Leon?”

Well, that was a surprise. He’d assumed Max was already asleep but apparently he was also dealing with some things that were keeping him awake.

“Hm?”

“You know, I’ve been thinking…” There was a pause in which Max was clearly trying to come up with a way to phrase his thoughts. “I dragged you into this without even considering whether you like someone at the moment.” It was more of a statement than a question but Leon got the hint nonetheless.

“I… uh…. does it matter? I agreed to help you, didn’t I?”

“So you do like someone!”

Leon hesitated. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t deny it either, though.” He could practically hear the smirk on Max’s face in his voice.

Leon didn’t answer. What was he supposed to say to that? He was walking a dangerously thin line here.

“So,” Max spoke up again when Leon still hadn’t responded, “who is it?”

Slowly, Leon turned on his side so that he was facing Max and even though he couldn’t see him he sensed that Max was also looking at him and for a split second he felt like here, in the confines of this dark room in the middle of the night, there was a possibility to just say this one word that was sitting on the tip of his tongue. You.

But then his brain caught up with his treacherous heart and made him bite back his confession. Instead he said the next best thing that came to his mind.

“I’m not even sure if it’s a real crush. Like, it’s way too early to analyse any feelings that may or may not be there and besides, you don’t know them, anyway.” Lies, lies, lies! Of course it was a real crush and of course there were feelings. A lot of them. And they’ve been there for God knows how long. Probably even longer than Leon was aware of because it’s not like you fall in love with your best friend overnight. The only thing that’s sudden about that is the realisation that hits you one day like truck coming at you at full speed, knocking all the air out of your lungs and making you feel like you’re drowning and when you can finally breathe again nothing is the same anymore. And it sucks! It sucks so bad!

“Oh, okay.” Was all Max had to say to that and if he noticed the gender neutral pronoun, he didn’t comment on it. “But you’re still okay with us doing this? Because now I feel bad for making you pretend like we’re in love when, clearly, your mind is already occupied regarding that department.”

“Yeah, no, it’s fine.” It wasn’t. “I mean we’re only doing this around the other guys so it’s not like the whole world thinks we’re a couple, right? To everyone outside the team I’m still single so it should be okay. We just have to look out for Löw; I don’t wanna get him into this mess as well.” What the hell was he doing? Max just gave him the perfect opportunity to bail out of this stupid agreement. All he’d had to do was tell him that it made him feel weird and Max would’ve totally understood and called this entire thing off.

But maybe, deep down, he didn’t actually want that. Maybe, just maybe, he was enjoying this a bit too much and maybe he was in too deep to give all of it up so easily now.

“Yeah…” Max yawned. “Me neither.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol I don't even know what this is but I wanted to finally publish this so here ya go!  
> If you're wondering which warm-up exercise they're doing bc I'm bad at describing it's [this one](http://bilder3.n-tv.de/img/incoming/origs19878942/4162532854-w1280-h960/d5d4995a7bf8eb678c4ce1d038619ab6.jpg).


	3. Freunde bleiben

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To make things worse, Leon chose this exact moment to come over and plop down on the yoga mat next to his. “What’s going on?” He asked before taking a sip from his water bottle.  
> “We were just talking about your sex life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my birthday but you are the ones that get the present yay! (Technically, my birthday was yesterday but it's only 1am so it still counts.)

Max was roused from his slumber by the sound of an alarm clock going off. He reluctantly opened his eyes and found himself looking directly at Leon who stared back at him with a smile. “Good morning, honey.”

Max stifled a yawn before responding with a short “Morning.” It was too early for that banter shit.

Leon rolled around to the other side of his bed, aimlessly swatting at his phone with his hand until after a few tries the alarm was finally cut off. Then he got up and disappeared into the bathroom.

Max, once again amazed at how easily Leon gets out of bed in the morning, also made a grab for his phone, squinting at the brightness of the screen and groaned when he saw the time. Putting it down again he turned around and dragged his blanket over his head to hide from the bright morning light that was mercilessly attacking his eyeballs.

A few minutes later he heard Leon emerge from the bathroom before he felt him tugging on his bed spread. “Come on, big boy! We have an important game tonight! Gotta get ready!”

“I don’t wanna!” Max moaned and buried his face in his pillows. He was still way too tired to be a functioning human being right now.

Even though he had gone to bed relatively early last night, sleep hadn’t come for a long time. There were just a lot of things going through his head at the moment. Besides the usual worries about the impression he left on Löw and whether he was good enough to play, he now had his fake relationship with Leon to think about as well. The fact that Leon was actually crushing on somebody right now didn’t make this entire thing any easier.

Although Leon had assured him that it wasn’t a problem for him, Max still couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty – but also I tiny bit disappointed? Who was this other person that Leon had hidden from him all this time? Why hadn’t he told him about it earlier? They were best friends after all. Weren’t best friend supposed to tell each other everything?

Max didn’t buy Leon’s weak excuses for one second and it hurt to know that he no longer was the first person Leon told those things to. They weren’t teenagers anymore, he supposed, but did that mean that they couldn’t get excited for each other anymore?

“Honestly, Max, I don’t know how you manage to live on your own.”

“I don’t know how anyone manages to live on their own. It’s terrible, I have to do my own laundry and cook for myself.”

Leon snorted. “When have you ever gotten close enough to a stove for it to be considered cooking?”

“Hey!” He flung his pillow at him but Leon caught it with ease and threw it back in his direction, hitting him square in the face with it.

“Ow!” Begrudgingly, Max sat up and got out of bed as there was no point in trying to get some last minutes of sleep anymore. He had been roommates with Leon enough times to know that he wouldn’t stop pestering him until he finally got up. How can someone be in such a good mood at this time of the day?

He shuffled to the bathroom where he splashed some cold water on his face and then got ready for the day. Leon was already dressed and waiting for him when he stepped out so he quickly put on his designated DFB clothing that everyone was obligated to wear during international break and then turned towards Leon. “Alright, let’s go!”

Leon got up from his bed and walked over to open the door but before he could head out Max quickly grabbed his hand. “To another day of being boyfriends!” He proclaimed.

He could pretend that he only did it to keep up the lie but the truth was that he had already gotten used to Leon holding his hand wherever they went. And he also couldn’t deny that it felt good to know Leon was always right by his side. He was honestly beginning to think that he was touch starved from the way he enjoyed and looked forward to such a small thing.

Leon glanced at their intertwined fingers and Max thought he’d caught a glimpse of the smallest of smiles grazing his lips but he could’ve as well as imagined that. He gave Max’s hand a light but determined squeeze - as if to brace them both for the day - and then stepped out into the hallway.

-

After breakfast the team started their match preparation. They stayed inside, making use of the rooms provided by the hotel exclusively for them, and mostly did warm-up exercises like playing ‘foot tennis’ in groups of two (which was fun) or stretching (which wasn’t).

Max was currently focused on warming up his muscles on a yoga mat when Thomas came over and sat down next to him. He also started to do some exercises but from the way he kept looking over to him, Max couldn’t shake the feeling that he wanted to say something. After a few more seconds of silence, when Max was just about to ask him what his problem was, he finally spoke up.

“So, how long have you and Leon been-”

“7th of August.” Max responded without hesitation, already having anticipated this question. He didn’t expect Thomas to be interested in his ‘relationship’ but then again Thomas was the biggest gossip he knew. So it had only been a matter of time until he came to ‘interview’ him.

“Wait.” Thomas paused mid- exercise and turned to Max. “So you got together in Brazil?”

Oh shit! Max had totally not thought of that when he had suggested that date to Leon yesterday. And Leon hadn’t reminded him either.

He quickly recovered in order to not let his panic show. “Uh, yeah. Well sort of. Leon was already back in Germany. We had a match that evening and I called him because I was nervous and I just kind of… asked him out? I was so glad he said yes. Could you imagine what would’ve happened if he had said no?” He quickly stopped himself from rambling on and did his best not to make his laugh seem fake.

“You didn’t even see each other?” Thomas seemed genuinely shocked by that.

“No, but we facetimed every day so that helped.” That wasn’t even a lie. They really did facetime daily which proved to be quite a challenge because of time zones – Leon once called him after a match, meaning he must’ve stayed up until at least 3am - but they somehow made do. “But of course I couldn’t wait to finally see him again. We had a lot to catch up on.”

“Oh, spare me the details please. I just hope you used protection.”

“What? No, that’s not what I meant!” Max felt his cheeks getting hot and buried his face in his hands. Talking about sexual stuff with Thomas was nearly as embarrassing as talking about it with his parents. He had heard the stories from Joshua and Julian and would’ve liked to avoid that special talk with Thomas.

“No need to be embarrassed about it. It’s a completely natural thing.”

“Thomas, stop!” By now, Max very much wished the ground would have mercy on him and swallow him up. He knew he had to be as red as a beet already and he could feel some of their teammates curiously staring in their direction.

To make things worse, Leon chose this exact moment to come over and plop down on the yoga mat next to his. “What’s going on?” He asked before taking a sip from his water bottle.

“We were just talking about your sex life.”

Leon almost choked on the sip of water he just took. “Our what?” He forced out between coughs.

“No, we were not doing that.” Max gave Thomas a stern look while helping Leon who still had trouble breathing by slapping him on the back.

However, Thomas seemed entirely unperturbed by that and only ruffled his hair in response. “I’m just joking, Maxi. Don’t worry, I’m in no way interested in what’s going on in your bedroom.”

Max let out an exasperated groan and rolled his eyes but knew better than to reply as Thomas was obviously in a funny mood right now and any verbal response would just result in another joke at his expense.

“I still can’t believe this, though.” Suddenly, Thomas expression turned serious. “You spend every minute at Schalke clinging onto each other and nothing happens but of course, the second you’re separated for more than a week you suddenly realise you’re in love with each other. That’s so typical of you. I don’t know why I expected anything else.”

Max frowned. “What do you mean ‘you expected anything’?”

“Well, it was inevitable that you’d fall in love sooner or later, anyone could see that – even all the way from Munich, but I thought it’d happen in a less dramatic way and not when you’re literally 6000 miles apart and then realise you can’t live without the other.”

Leon and Max gaped at him in shock. Max wanted to object but he was so taken by surprise by this casual statement that it left him speechless. Inevitable? Anyone could see that?

What. The. Hell.

He had kind of accepted the fact that some fans liked to interpret all kinds of stuff into their interactions but he never would’ve expected people who knew them in real life, teammates even, to think the same thing.

Right in that moment Manu appeared and saved them both from making some kind of stupid, thoughtless comment that could threaten their entire operation.

“Come on, old man. Stop bothering the kids and actually do some exercising for once.” He bent down and took Thomas’s hands. The other man complained that “he was actually younger than him” and that “he’d already done enough” but let himself be pulled up to his feet nonetheless. He was about to move but turned around to face them once more. “Well, what I actually wanted to say was: I hope you’re happy. You deserve it.” He gave them a sincere smile and then followed Manu to the adjacent room as Max and Leon looked after them with perplexed expressions.

-

They both had successfully ignored what Thomas had said earlier and were now sitting next to each other on the bus on the way to the stadium. Max had explained the Brazil situation to Leon so he was up to date with their fake relationship story should another incident like the one from this afternoon occur. Other than that they hadn’t talked a lot, both of them too focused on match prep.

“Always taking selfies.” Leon teased him with a shake of his head.

“Says the one who posts daily elevator mirror selfies of his outfit.” Max retorted without so much as looking at him while trying to find the perfect angle which wasn’t as easy as it sounds as the lighting conditions in the bus were a bitch to work with.

“Touché.”

“How about you take a picture, then, Mr. Photographer?” He held out his phone to him.

“Alright.” Leon took Max’s phone but instead of simply snapping a picture of him he leaned over into his personal space in order to fit into the frame and took a selfie of both of them. Taking a look at it he shook his head and deleted it. “We gotta take another one. My hair looks all weird in this one.”

“I thought you didn’t care about your hair. You keep mocking me for always spending too much time on fixing my hair.”

“Yes, but this is social media, okay?”

It took six tries, accompanied by snickers from Benni and Mats who were sitting behind them, to get a photo that both Max and Leon were more or less satisfied with.

“What are you laughing at?” Max asked as he turned around in his seat to face them.

“You two are ridiculous.” Mats said with a snort.

“Well, for someone as good looking as you it’s no problem to just upload the very first selfie you take. Some people have to put some work into their appearances to make it look effortless.” Leon countered dryly.

Mats smirked and turned towards Benni. “Did you hear that, Benni? He called me good looking.” He put a hand over his heart, pretending to be deeply touched. “Thank you, Leon. I appreciate it but don’t you think it’s a bit dangerous to go around calling other men attractive when your boyfriend is right here next to you?” He asked with a nod in Max’s direction.

But Max dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Nah, we’re chill like that. The fact that we’re together doesn’t mean we can’t find other people attractive, does it? And besides, I could never get jealous of you. You love Benni way too much to simply cheat on him like that.”

“Well, at least I’m faithful, unlike your man over here.”

Leon raised his brows. “Really? You call leaving for Bayern after eight years of playing for the Bees and being their captain ‘faithful’?”

“Right?” Max chimed in. “And you also left behind Benni. How dare you, Mats!”

Mats only rolled his eyes in response but Max turned back around in his seat with a smug smile on his face. Mats and Benni weren’t a couple but the team still liked to tease them about their ‘bromance’, as they liked to call it.

Taking back his phone from Leon, Max put his usual filters over the picture and uploaded it to Instagram. Then he fished out his earphones and put on some music, trying to get into the zone and block out any outside influences so he’d be ready when the match started.

Unfortunately, he only managed to do that to some extent because he kept thinking how Leon just straight up blurted out that he thought Mats was attractive. It hadn’t seemed like it was deliberate. He couldn’t deny that Mats was good looking, anyone with eyes could see that, but Leon had seemed slightly embarrassed by his sudden confession. Oh my God, was Mats Leon’s secret crush? That’d explain at least partly why he didn’t want to tell him about it. But Leon wasn’t gay, was he? No, he would’ve told him; Max was his best friend! But maybe…

Max stole a quick side glance at Leon who was just playing some game on his phone, completely oblivious to the cogs turning in Max’s head. In fact, he looked just like his usual self but what else had Max expected? A neon rainbow sign that said “I am gay” flashing above his head?

He couldn’t exactly ask him outright so instead Max decided to keep an eye out for any ‘suspicious’ behaviour on Leon’s behalf, especially when it came to Mats.

-

They arrived about one and a half hours before kick-off and like always, immediately went to check out the pitch and the empty stadium that was only slowly beginning to fill up with people. It was a weird feeling to know that thousands of people were watching him and taking photos of him. He should be used to it by now but there was a difference between actually playing in front of millions of people and just standing there in the centre of the pitch to be gawked at. It still made him a bit uncomfortable.

Fortunately, they were ordered to go back inside to change into their training gear so when they came back out they could do some final warm-up exercises among the roaring cheers of the crowd, which felt slightly better because they were actually doing something. There were already a lot more people than only a few minutes ago and even more were constantly pouring into the stadium. Slowly but surely, Max could start to feel the energy and tension rising all around and inside him.

Back inside he put on his kit, still marvelling at the fact that he made it to the senior team. He didn’t wear his usual no. 7; that was Jule’s number now after Basti had retired but he didn’t really care what number he got as long as he was playing for the national team.

Manu held a final short speech to boost their morale and give them confidence for the match before they all finished off getting ready, some of them doing their usual pre-match rituals.

Max checked his phone one last time for a good luck message from his mother, which she always insisted on sending him before any of his matches, but got distracted by the dozens and dozens of notifications on the photo he had posted earlier and forgotten about since.

Going through them he found a lot of the usual heart-eye emojis and “come to ____” comments and Thilo even posted a blue heart, bless him, but there was one that caught his eye.

 **@meyer.love** @04_fangurl see??? #meyretzka is real!!

He didn’t even know why this one stuck out to him in particular. It wasn’t like this was the first time he had gotten a comment of this kind. Usually, he would ignored it but for some reason he got curious this time.

He clicked on the profile and at first glance it looked like a normal Schalke/Max Meyer fan account – if you could call fan accounts dedicated to him ‘normal’ – with photos of him and his teammates.

But upon closer inspection he realised that most of the pictures and videos were of him and Leon. Not some photoshopped edits. Real ones. Pictures they had once shared on social media, videos of after match celebrations, impressions of Schalke training sessions, really old stuff from when they were younger and played for the U teams, you name it. This account had it all. It basically managed to document their friendship throughout the years.

And all of a sudden he understood. Looking at all the evidence objectively, the fact that fans had started to ship him with Leon was hardly surprising. They were hella cute. If he didn’t know any better, he too would think there was something going on. And even though he hated how he looked in most of the photos, he found himself smiling at the memories they brought back.

“Meyer!” Max startled and looked up at Sami standing in the doorway. “Come on, get going!” Was all he said before he disappeared. Looking around Max realised that he was the only one still in the locker room. He quickly stowed away his phone and fixed his socks before joining his teammates in the tunnel.

Throughout the entire ceremony Max was on edge and couldn’t focus on anything. His thoughts were too loud and all over the place. He was glad he knew the national anthem by heart because otherwise he would’ve probably embarrassed himself just like Sarah Connor.

Then the referee blew the whistle and suddenly Max forgot everything else but the game. This was what he was here to do and nothing else mattered now.

The Czech Republic did their best, defending with everything they got and creating a few chances but Germany was clearly the better side. It was only a matter of time until someone would score, Max could feel it. And as if Thomas had heard his thoughts, he slotted the ball into the back of the net only 13 minutes into the game, after an amazing assist from Mesut.

But the match dragged on after that. They managed to drive the Czechs into their own half of the field but none of their advances seemed to work out. When Max pierced through their defence, dribbling towards the goal, one of his opponents tackled him feet first, causing his right foot to twist painfully.

He heard the whistle before he was even fully on the ground. Lying face down on the pitch, he held his ankle when he felt someone touching his shoulder. “Are you okay?” Leon asked, his voice layered with worry.

Max only nodded, it wasn’t anything major just some painful contact, but the meds still came running and applied some ice spray, which was clearly a godsend as it instantly relieved most of the pain.

He stood back up with the help of Leon and Mesut and walked over to the sidelines, waiting to be subbed in again. His ankle still hurt a bit but he could continue playing if Löw would let him.

Shortly after that, the first half ended.

Making his way to the locker rooms Max thought about how grateful he was there wouldn’t be a penalty shootout tonight no matter the result. The memory of the last time he went into penalties wearing the German kit was still all too present in his mind, accompanied by the feeling of being a failure, not only as a player but especially as a captain.

-

_It’s their first match of the tournament. Mexico is a tough opponent but it’s a manageable task, they know that. They start off rather slow with difficulties Leon gets subbed off after just about half an hour. Still they keep fighting and manage to keep up with their South American opponents. Mexico opens the scoring after halftime but shortly after, Serge manages to shoot the ball into the net. It’s a 2-2 draw in the end, which given the dynamics of the match, is a result they can more or less live with. What’s worse is that Leon’s injury kicks him out of the rest of the tournament. He gets sent home and Max becomes the new captain and that’s that._

_They get through the rest of the tournament rather well, the 10-0 win over Fiji giving them a boost of self-confidence for the following matches. Then suddenly it’s the night of the final. Against Brazil. In their own country. It’s not impossible; they all remember the incredible night of Belo Horizonte two years ago but they also know that’s it’s unlikely to happen again. And they end up being right._

_It’s a difficult match. Neymar scores first, giving his country the lead to the cheers of the entire stadium. Nevertheless they continue fighting and after almost an hour of playtime Max sends the ball sailing into the back of the net. None of the teams lets their guard down after that, not even during extra time. So penalties it is._

_Matze starts – and scores. But the Brazilians make short work and equalise. They take turns, each one converting his kick until Nils walks up to the penalty spot, takes a run, shoots and Wéverton saves. Then it all depends on Neymar._

_Timo has no chance._

_That’s it._

_Max holds up Leon’s jersey during the ceremony because that’s all he can do for him at that moment. It’s not the World Cup and it’s not the gold medal but he still hopes Leon appreciates the gesture._

_~_

_Two days later Max arrives at Frankfurt airport along with the rest of his teammates. From there he takes a connecting flight to Dortmund where he gets picked up by a DFB employee who takes his suitcase and drives him to his apartment. On the way he gets a call from his mom making sure he was well and asking him whether their dinner plans are still on. He’s way too tired from the jetlag but he promised his parents to visit them as soon as possible so he confirms._

_The first thing he wants to do when he enters his apartment is lie down and sleep for the next two days straight but he forces himself to start unpacking his bags which basically means throwing most of it into the laundry basket. The silver medal appears somewhere between layers and layers of clothes and he carefully picks it up to inspect it. It’s not his; that one is still hanging around his neck, the weight of it forgotten until now._

_He doesn’t know what he’s going to do with it yet but there’s no way in hell he’d put a reminder of one of the worst nights of his life on display somewhere on his shelves._

_All of a sudden he can’t bear to be in this flat all on his own anymore. He pulls a jacket from his suitcase and puts it on, disregarding the messy pile of clothes still scattered all over his floor, before stuffing the medal in one of his pockets and grabbing his keys on his way to the front door. After it clicks shut behind him he stops for a second and takes a deep breath. Then he takes the elevator to the parking garage._

_He arrives at Leon’s apartment complex ten minutes later and lingers in his car for a while, unsure if coming here was the right decision. He’s about to see his best friend for the first time since he had to leave Brazil due to his injury. For Leon it was like a punch to the face._ He _was supposed to captain this ragtag team that no one really had any expectations for and lead it to the final, not Max. Maybe they would’ve won if Leon hadn’t hurt his shoulder or if Max hadn’t failed as a captain. He isn’t sure if he will be able to look Leon in the eye. All he wanted was to bring him the gold medal. To win it for him. What he got instead was a penalty shootout that couldn’t have turned out any worse and a grateless second place._

_After five minutes of contemplating he pulls himself together and gets out of the car. He presses the doorbell and a few moments later the electric strike hums and he climbs the stairs to the second floor. Leon opens the door, his eyebrows shooting up when he sees Max. He checks his watch and looks back at Max. “What are you doing here? Your flight must’ve landed not even an hour ago.”_

_Seeing Leon for the first time since they said their goodbyes in Brazil makes all of his doubts come rushing back and for a second Max doesn’t know what to say. “I… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come.” Clearly, he isn’t welcome here. He turns but Leon’s voice stops him._

_“Max, wait!”_

_Slowly, he turns back around._

_“Do you want to come in?” Leon asks almost tentatively._

_Max thinks for a second but then scolds himself. This was his best friend. What is he so afraid of?_

_Leon lets him in and closes the door. Max slips out of his shoes putting them next to approximately ten pairs of Leon’s lined up in the hallway. Leon looks like he wants to say something but doesn’t know how and it causes an awkward silence between them. It has been a long time since Max felt so uncomfortable around here. Normally he would walk into this apartment like he lived there. He crashed on Leon’s couch so many times already it almost feels like his second home. But right now everything just feels weird and out of place._

_Finally, Leon opens his mouth. “You want something to drink?”_

_Not what he expected but he’ll take it. He nods. “Water please.”_

_Leon makes his way over to his kitchen to get them some drinks while Max waits by the doorway. His phone buzzes but he doesn’t look at it. Whoever it is, they would have to wait until he talked things out with his best friend._

_Leon takes two glasses out of the kitchen cabinet one by one as his left arm is still immobilized by a splint and Max watches him struggling to open the bottle with the limited mobility he has._

_“Here, let me help you.” He comes over and takes the bottle from Leon, opening it with one swift move before pouring its contents into the glasses. He hands one to Leon and takes a sip from the other one._

_“Thank you.” Leon mumbles. He motions towards the living room so Max leads the way. Before he sits down he rummages in his pocket and pulls out the silver medal. He gives it to Leon who carefully takes it into his hand to examine it._

_After another minute that feels like an eternity spent in silence Max can’t handle it anymore. “It’s yours.” As if that isn’t obvious by the fact that his own medal is still dangling around his neck. Great one, Meyer._

_Leon puts it down onto the coffee table in front of them. “I don’t want it.” And with that Max’s world shatters into a million pieces. He fucked up. Leon hates him._

_He lets out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Leon.” Taking the medal he stands up. “I think I’ll go now.”_

_Leon looks up at him in surprise. “What?”_

_“We failed you. I failed you! I wasn’t worthy of the captaincy. That was supposed to be your part.”_

_Leon catches his wrist and forces him to sit back down. “I know, okay? And I’m sorry I couldn’t fulfil that responsibility. I don’t deserve to wear that medal. I bailed on all of you, I mean I wasn’t even there for moral support, I just left.”_

_“But that wasn’t your fault.” Max interjected. “You were - are - injured.”_

_“Just like none of this is your fault. You did your best. I’m proud of how far you’ve come.”_

_“But my best wasn’t enough. I wanted to get gold. For you.”_

_“And I wanted to be there for you, for the team. I guess we can’t all keep our promises.” Leon says with a sad smile and Max resigns._

_“Guess so.”_

_“Max, look at me.”_

_He looks up directly into Leon’s eyes. “You were an amazing captain. Please believe me. I’m not mad or disappointed in you at all. I don’t care, okay? Fuck penalties! And fuck that final! There will be other, more important ones to come. And we will win them. Together. Okay?”_

_Leon’s expression is so sincere that Max can’t help but let out a sigh of relief and nod in response. Leon isn’t upset with him. They are going to be okay. It feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders._

_Suddenly the silence is disturbed by the ringtone of Leon’s phone. He fishes it out of his pocket and answers it._

_“Hello? Oh, hello Mrs. Meyer.” He shots a quick glance at Max whose head whips around abruptly. Shit, he totally forgot about the family dinner. “Yes, he’s here-” Max rapidly shakes his head, trying to silently get it across to Leon that he doesn’t want to talk to his mother right now “-but he’s sleeping right now. I think the jetlag got to him. He just came over to give me my medal and we talked a bit and when I went to make us some food I came back to find him fast asleep on my sofa. I didn’t know he still had plans otherwise I would’ve woken him up.”_

_A pause. “No, I don’t think that’s necessary. As I said, I made some food earlier.” Another pause. “Yes, ma’am, I will.” Max can faintly hear his mother’s voice on the other end but can’t make out what exactly she’s saying. “Thank you. Have a nice day.”_

_Leon hangs up. “You owe me one.”_

_“What did she want?”_

_“She offered to come over and drop off some of the food she made especially for_ you _.” Max doesn’t miss the ‘somehow I’m not even surprised’ look Leon throws in his direction. “She also asked me to tell you that she’ll put the leftovers in the freezer and that you should come get them once you feel like visiting your family again.”_

_Max clears his throat. Getting reprimanded by his mother not only in front of his best friend but also via his best friend is not necessarily something Max ever wanted to experience. “Uh, anything else?”_

_“She told me to take care of you so… since I haven’t actually made anything, should we order some takeout?”_

_“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Who knows, maybe I’ll fall asleep while you answer the door and pay the delivery guy and then what are you gonna do?”_

_“Well, I guess that just leaves more food for me then.” He answers with a smirk which earns him a sofa cushion to the face. Laughing he throws it back at Max and picks up his phone again to order some pizza from their go-to delivery service. After he hangs up he turns to Max again._

_“Now let’s play Fifa.”_

_Max laughs. “Dude, can you even play with that limpy arm of yours?”_

_“Oh, you’re going down!” Leon stands up to turn on the console and get the controllers lying by the tv._

_“No, imma beat your ass!” Max snatches the controller Leon holds out to him and shifts to the edge of the couch, putting on his best focused expression._

_They decide to go with the North London derby and Max has to admit that Leon is playing way better than him but he blames most of it on his tiredness and the rest of it on the Spurs. He soon is 3-0 down but he starts to catch up halfway into the match._

_He still loses 4-2 but he can’t whine about it for too long as the food arrives just as the match ends and his stomach growls in response to the scent of freshly baked pizza when Leon walks into the room carrying the two boxes._

_They eat mostly in silence but it’s comfortable this time. Max notices his own yawns getting more frequent and he keeps having trouble keeping his eyes open. Leon must’ve noticed it as well because, once they’re finished, he wordlessly hands him the pillow and blanket he always gives him when he stays over. It used to be Leon’s guest bedding but it has almost become exclusively his by this point. The only thing that’s missing is his own toothbrush and underwear; then he could basically move into Leon’s apartment._

_It’s only 7pm and he feels kinda bad for occupying Leon’s living room for the rest of the night but then he falls asleep in a matter of seconds and every concern is forgotten at least for the next few hours._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback and kudos are always appreciated :)


	4. Es reicht mir (nicht mehr)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, and Leon?” He turned around, his mind already conjuring up excuses. “Promise me that whatever you and Max have going on won’t affect either of your performances.”

While Löw was giving out his instructions on how he wanted everything to go down during the second half Leon noticed that Max seemed pretty out of it so after Löw was finished talking Leon walked across the room and sat down next to him while everyone else got ready for the next 45 minutes. “Hey, how’s your ankle feeling?”

Max snapped out of his train of thought, startled by Leon’s approach and turned to face him. “Sorry, what?”

Leon chuckled at the confused look on Max’s face. “You didn’t hear anything Löw just told us, did you?”

“No… yes!” He stammered a bit flustered before he stopped trying. “No. Erm, I was just thinking about how glad I am that there won’t be any overtime or penalties.” He admitted with a weak smile that didn’t reach his eyes. To anyone else it might have sounded like Max was in more pain than he’d like to admit and didn’t want to strain his ankle more than necessary but Leon knew his best friend. Without having to say anything else he knew exactly what he was referring to.

Clearly, Max was still dealing with the fact that they lost the final in the Olympics which Leon thought was unfair. Everyone else who had been in Brazil seemed to have gotten over it already so why should Max keep beating himself up about it?

“If you ask me, I think there should be penalties.”

Max stared at him in shock, clearly not having expected that answer.

“It’s time you get over what happened in Rio. I know you think it’s all your fault but it isn’t. The Brazilians simply were luckier that night. That’s it.” He gave him an encouraging smile. He still sometimes got the feeling Max thought he was somehow mad at him and he had been trying his best to convince him of the contrary. True, he might have been disappointed at first but that was mostly due to not being able to help his teammates and having to watch in front of his TV at home in Germany. He had no reason to criticise Max or any of the other players. They did their best and in the end it wasn’t enough. Things like that happen. That’s football. That’s life.

His friend still looked a bit wary so Leon tried again, putting on his most sincere expression.

“Max, you made it into the senior team. That should be proof enough that you’re talented. You should be proud of yourself. And as one of the greatest idols of our times once said: ‘You can work super hard and give everything you have, and lose.’”

Max furrowed his brows. “Who said that?”

“Beyoncé.” Leon stated matter-of-factly, causing Max to immediately burst out laughing.

Leon smiled to himself. Watching Max laugh was one of the most beautiful sights he had ever laid his eyes upon even if it made the ever-present ache in his chest hurt a bit more. For now, he was happy to be the one who had evoked this reaction.

“So… Beyoncé is your idol, huh?” Max asked after having calmed down again.

“So? That woman has achieved so much in her lifetime she’s basically set for life and she’s only 35. But does that stop her from continuing to work and push herself? No, she…” Leon trailed off because Max was watching him with an expression on his face that he absolutely couldn’t read. “What?”

“Thank you.”

Leon didn’t know whether he was thanking him for the small pep talk or for making him laugh - or maybe both - but he didn’t care that much. All that mattered was that he had taken Max’s mind off things even if it only lasted for a few minutes.

But before he could respond he was cut off by someone clearing his throat. Max and Leon both turned their heads only to find Mario standing on the other side of the locker room.

“I really don’t want to interrupt your super romantic moment but I think we should really get going.”

Leon nodded. “Right.” He stood up from the bench, taking Max’s hands to pull him to his feet. “Come on _Kleiner_ , let’s destroy these Czechs.”

“Stop calling me that.” Max complained with a pout while also getting up to his feet.

“You love it.” Leon smirked in response before turning around and following Mario out the door and into the tunnel.

During the second half Leon tried to implement as much of what Löw had said as possible. They passed even more, playing faster than before and making their opponents chase after them. It was an exhausting style of playing but soon they could see the effects of their effort. The Czechs seemed to get more and more tired, which left more space for the Germans to create chances.

Leon had one of the best ones, actually, volleying one of Toni’s corner kicks and firing the ball against the crossbar. But in the end it was Toni himself who scored the second goal from open play with a long-range shot.

After that the rest of the match was a walk in the park. While the Czechs did have some very good chances in the first half, they completely retreated to their own side of the field and tried their best to defend their goal from further damage. But somehow, Thomas still managed to slot one last shoot past their defence and goalkeeper, settling the final score to 3-0.

-

It was already very late when they returned to their hotel but as always, the team decided to celebrate their win by having a secret little get-together. This time Mats and Benni were hosting as their room was two floors above the ‘staff corridor’, minimising the risk of their celebration being heard by the coaches.

Leon was starting to find it a bit excessive to throw a party after every game they won because it basically meant throwing one after every single game but he also didn’t want to be the party pooper and ruin everyone’s mood. They had played an amazing game after all and anyway, Max was way too excited and wouldn’t let him stay in their hotel room alone so he was forced to accompany him.

That’s how he ended up being squished in between Jules and Jo on one of the beds while Max was animatedly talking to Benni about God knows what on the other side of the room.

Once everyone had gathered in the room, that was definitely way too small to fit them all, Musti spoke up to get everyone’s attention. “Guys, I’ve got this Truth or Dare app on my phone so who wants to play?”

Leon wasn’t keen on it but soon enough he was sitting on the floor in a circle along with the rest of the guys and found his name being added to the list of participants. In order for the game to work each player’s name had to be typed into the app beforehand so they could be randomised. Then, by clicking a button the app would come up with a question or task depending on what the chosen person had picked. The first victim was Marc who went for truth.

“How many sexual partners have you had so far? Oooh, that’s a good one to start off with.” Musti looked up from his phone and wiggled his brows in a suggestive way, anticipating the answer. But Marc only shrugged his shoulder nonchalantly. “Um… like four maybe?”

Bernd, who sat next to him spun his head and looked at him with surprise. “Really?”

Marc seemed a bit confused by the question. “Well, yeah. How many did you think I had?”

“I don’t know. More than four? I mean, you could probably have had more than that, is all I’m saying.”

“I think we all could have more, considering we’re world-famous footballers.” Marc responded. “Doesn’t mean we have to take advantage of that.”

“Yeah no, that’s not what I was trying to say.” He made a move to explain himself but then seemed to change his mind and simply gestured to Musti. “Let’s just continue.”

“Alright.” He held his phone out to Marc so he could press the button before turning it back around and reading out what it said on the screen. “Our next victim is Leon!” He exclaimed.

Leon rolled his eyes. He wasn’t in the mood for a dare but choosing truth could get him and Max both in a precarious situation so he had no other option than to tell Musti to give him a dare.

“It says: Ask a stranger for their mobile number.”

“Well, uh none of you are strangers to me and I’ve already got all of your numbers so…” He trailed off hoping he could avoid doing his dare that way.

But of course Musti wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily. “So, you get your ass down to the lobby or bar and ask someone from there!”

_Dammit!_

“Ugh, fine.” He got up with a sigh and made his way over to the door. “And make sure to get them to write it on a piece of paper. We need evidence.” Mats called after him as the door slowly closed behind him.

He hurried to the bar as he wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. His eyes scanned the area for someone who looked approachable and he quickly made out a girl sitting all own her own at the bar. He headed straight for her and tapped her shoulder so she would turn around to him.

“Hey, can I have your phone number?”

Her eyebrows shot up in bewilderment at the bold advance. “Uh, may I ask why?”

Leon contemplated telling her the truth but decided that admitting it was because he was playing spin the bottle with his mates seemed a bit childish so he settled for the good old wingman excuse. “You see, my friend thinks you’re really pretty but he’s too shy to ask you out himself.”

The girl craned her neck trying to look past Leon and even turned the other way, searching the open space of the bar. “Funny.” She turned back to face him. “Your friend must truly be very afraid because I can’t seem to find him anywhere.” Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“Oh no, uh, he doesn’t know I’m doing this. It’s kind of… a surprise.” That last part sounded more like a question and Leon couldn’t believe the stupid shit that was coming out of his mouth. Maybe he should’ve just gone for the truth.

But no matter if the girl actually believed his story or not, it still worked. She rummaged in her bag and pulled out a pen (how do girls always have everything they need at hand?) and snatched one of the napkins from the table to write down her number. “Tell your friend to grow some balls otherwise the girl of his dreams might just elope with his wingman.” She said with a wink before handing him the napkin.

“Thank you so much. You won’t regret it, I promise.” Without showing any reaction to the obvious attempt at hitting on him, he grabbed the napkin and rushed out of there.

As he turned the corner he saw that the doors of the elevator were about to close so he sprinted towards it to try and reach it before it could take off without him. “Hold up!”

Luckily, the person inside had heard him and held out their hand between the two doors, causing them to open up once more. It wasn’t until then that Leon saw who it was. Löw. Of all people. Of course!

Having no other choice, Leon stepped into the elevator and thanked his manager with a small, polite smile. He shot a glance at the buttons on the control panel. They were about to go to the 4th floor which made sense since that was the one Löw and the rest of the staff had their rooms on. The problem was the Leon’s room was also on this floor but if he wanted to get back to the party he would have to go to the 6th floor. Dammit!

The doors closed, trapping them in the confined space. There was an awkward silence between them, disturbed only by the sound of the elevator as it was working its way up. Löw seemed to sense it too as he was the first to break it. “Good game today, Leon.”

“Thank you.”

Another round of silence followed. One-on-one conversations with their coach were always kind of weird and uncomfortable but this was even worse. Löw’s eyes seemed to get caught on something in Leon’s hand and it was only then that he realised that he was still holding on to the napkin with the number in plain sight. He looked like he wanted to say something but seemed to change his mind at the last second. Leon prayed to every God he could think of that he would just let it slide and wouldn’t think to ask him what the hell he had been doing downstairs this late at night, even though the explanation must’ve been obvious to him.

Thankfully, that was when the elevator stopped with a ding and the doors opened to the 4th floor hallway. Löw got off first and Leon had no choice but to follow him if he didn’t want to look even more suspicious than he already did.

He had stopped in front of his door, unlocking it with his key card and Leon had already walked past him towards his own room even though he didn’t even have his key with him when the manager spoke up once more “Oh, and Leon?” He turned around, his mind already conjuring up excuses. “Promise me that whatever you and Max have going on won’t affect either of your performances.”

Leon stared at him in shock. That was not what he had expected. It took him a few seconds until he could force his brain and mouth to produce an answer. “Uh, no. No, it won’t.” He stammered, feeling his cheeks growing hot from embarrassment. He forced what he hoped would be a reassuring smile onto his features, praying that Löw would leave it at that for now. He really didn’t want to have this talk without discussing their tactic with Max first.

Thankfully, Löw only smiled back at him. “Good.” He opened his door and disappeared inside his room without another word.

Leon waited about a minute until he was one hundred percent sure that Löw wouldn’t emerge again unexpectedly before hurrying back to the elevator and pressing the button to the 6th floor to tell Max about the strange encounter he just had.

-

“Did you get it?” Mats greeted him when he opened the door for him and Leon barged into the room.

“What?” He asked, having completely forgotten about the reason that had caused him to walk into Löw in the first place.

“The number, silly!”

“Oh… yeah.” He opened his hand to reveal the crumpled napkin in his palm and handed it to Mats. “Here.” Without waiting for a reaction he turned to his best friend. “Max, can I talk to you for a second?”

Max must’ve noticed the serious look on his face because he immediately agreed. “Sure!” He got up and followed Leon outside, closing the door behind him.

“What is i-”

“Löw knows!” He interrupted him.

Max’s jaw immediately dropped to the ground, the shock clearly visible on his face. “What? Why? How?”

“I just ran into him and he asked me whether our relationship would affect our performances. Someone must’ve told him. And what’s even worse is that he saw the number I just got so he probably thinks I’m cheating on you.”

Max worried his bottom lip nervously. “Did he say something about wanting to have a talk?”

“No, but I’m sure he’ll want to talk to us soon enough. Maybe that was his way of preparing us for it.”

“Shit!” Max looked as helpless as Leon felt.

“Should we just abort this whole thing now before things get too serious?” Leon suggested, one part of him desperately wanting this to end and the other part desperately holding onto it.

“No, we can’t do that yet.” Max opposed with a shake of his head. “I’m not going to reveal that it was fake without planning it first. I want all of them to look and feel like idiots when we do it, especially Ju and Jo. It needs to be a big finale. And the damage has been done already anyway. Löw’s just gonna be a victim of our prank now, too; so what? I mean, since we’re only pretending the talk can’t be that bad for us, right?”

Leon wasn’t sure what exactly Max was picturing when he spoke of this big finale and if he were honest he had a bad feeling about that but if Max was still willing to keep up this lie he would be the last person to disagree with him. Deep down he knew that he’d do him no good; the past few days had already been torture for him but he also couldn’t deny that he was enjoying Max’s attention as his fake boyfriend. So he kept silent and hoped that this wouldn’t blow up in their faces.

When they rejoined the group, they sat down on their previous places and Musti handed Leon his phone. “Here, it’s your turn.” Leon tapped the button and put down the phone in the middle of the circle, watching the animated reels in the app spin around until they stopped.

Musti picked up his phone and read out the new victim. “Benni! Truth or dare?”

Benni groaned. Apparently, he was having as much fun with this game as Leon but he answered nonetheless. “Truth.”

“Ah, this one should be easy for you: Of the people currently present, who would you sleep with?”

He thought about it for a while, like he was seriously considering the question but no one was being fooled by that so easily and Marco was the first one to say something. “Come on, just say it! We all know it.”

“Okay, but who here would not pick Mats?” Benni gave in which was met by some consensual muttering from everyone but Mats, who just gaped at the group like he was in The Office.

-

They continued playing for a while and Leon wasn’t even fully paying attention anymore until Max’s name being called out made him prick up his ears.

Max also seemed to have understood that opting for dare was less dangerous than choosing truth as it had less potential to expose them.

“Alright! Kiss someone of your choice.” Musti said, still greatly entertained by the game.

Leon tensed. So much for being less dangerous.

“That’s not fair! He’s going to choose Leon. They’re a couple anyway.” Thomas protested.

“So what? I, for one, have never seen them do more than hold hands so this could be quite interesting.” Jo retorted.

Leon gulped and met Max’s gaze whose expression seemed to silently ask him whether he was okay with this. Leon wasn’t but what could he do? Max himself didn’t look too excited about any of it either.

“Well, who are you gonna choose?” Jule asked, and suddenly every pair of eyes was directed at Max, who in turn still waited for Leon’s response. He gave the smallest of nods, indicating that Max could go ahead, before forcing himself to put on an act.

“Maximilian Meyer, don’t tell me you’re actually thinking about cheating on me!” He exclaimed with mock indignation.

Max got up and walked over to where Leon was sitting. “Never, babe.”

Leon pushed himself up to his feet as well so that he was standing opposite Max, towering over him. He was hyper aware of everyone around, staring at them and waiting. This was not how he imagined his first kiss with Max to play out at all. But you have to take what you can get, right? If he couldn’t avoid it he might as well enjoy it while it lasted.

“Ready?” Max whispered so only Leon could hear it.

“Yeah.” He croaked, even though he wasn’t ready at all. But there was no going back now.

Max stepped closer and Leon’s heartbeat went into overdrive while the rest of the world seemed to go into slow-motion. He wrapped his arms around Leon’s neck, standing on his tiptoes in order to reach him and Leon put his hands around Max’s waist to support him. Max pulled him down and then gently pressed his lips on Leon’s.

If Leon closed his eyes and shut out the whooping of the others he could almost pretend that it was real. Max lips were soft, softer than he had expected, and tasted like alcohol and the lip balm he always put on to prevent his lips from getting chappy. It was nothing more than a simple peck and lasted only for a second but if Leon had to choose one moment of his life in which he had to be frozen in forever, this would be it.

And then it was over. Max broke the kiss and Leon slowly opened his eyes to meet Max’s wary expression, searching Leon’s face for any signs that he might be angry at him. But Leon wasn’t angry. The only feeling his body was capable of recognising right at that moment was just overwhelming sadness.

-

The worst thing was that he couldn’t even talk himself into believing that he regretted the kiss. No, the only thing he regretted was allowing the situation to even get to that point because now he was sitting here on one of the beds all on his own, lamenting the mess he’d gotten himself into. But the kiss itself had been too good to regret. He absentmindedly ran a finger over his lips, remembering the tingling sensation Max’s lips left there and all of a sudden he realised that he will probably never get to feel them again. That was it. Leon didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry. A kiss from Max was the one thing he had been dreaming of for months, years even if he was honest, and now that he’d gotten a taste of that he knew that it would never be enough.

 “Here.” Mats appeared out of nowhere and sat down next to him, holding out the napkin to him. “You probably won’t need it but you earned it regardless. You could frame it as a reminder of your first true conquest.” Mats said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Haha.” Leon retorted dryly but still took it back and stuffed into his pocket. “I think we both know the reason why I always sucked at picking up girls was because I’m gay.” He froze. That was the first time he had actually said it out loud to someone else than only himself. And it had simply rolled off his tongue like that. He had just come out to Mats and his friend didn’t even know.

If Mats noticed the sudden change of atmosphere he didn’t let it show and just chuckled instead. “How did you manage to get that number anyway?”

Leon cleared his throat. He was still too rattled by what just happened but forced himself to act like a normal human being even though he was freaking out internally. “I told her it was for a friend of mine who was too shy to ask her himself.”

“And she fell for that?” Mats looked genuinely surprised.

“Well, I guess it’s more likely she just took pity on me or simply wanted me gone as fast as possible. I don’t even know if that’s her real number.”

Mats laughed at that. “Why don’t you try it then? The dare did say you have to get a stranger’s phone number. If it’s not a real number then you didn’t complete the dare.”

“Are you serious right now?”

“What are you two talking about?” Max chimed in, plopping down on the space between the two of them and throwing his arms around their shoulders, a bottle of beer in his right hand. It was pretty evident that he was already a bit tipsy from the way his eyes seemed to not fully focus when he smiled at them. Apparently, Mats and Benni had made sure to have a decent stash of alcohol before inviting people. Well, mostly Mats he supposed; Benni had probably not been in favour of providing booze for the youngsters.

“I just couldn’t believe that Leon managed to get a girl’s number all on his own.” Mats answered, still grinning mischievously.

“Oh yeah, that’s a miracle.” Max agreed with a smirk in Leon’s direction. “Sure you didn’t have any help?”

“Very funny.” Leon replied, his tone of voice making it clear that he didn’t think it was funny at all.

“Well, we can’t blame him.” Mats said matter-of-factly. “I wouldn’t make an effort either if I wasn’t even interested in girls.”

If Mats knew only how dangerously close to the actual truth he was.

“No, I don’t think that’s it. I mean, I’m not interested in girls either and I still never had a problem getting their numbers back when I was still pretending to be straight. I think he just got weak game.” Max argued, talking to Mats as if he was unaware that Leon was still right there next to him.

 _Yeah, because you actually do like girls, you liar,_ Leon thought but refrained from saying it out loud. He knew that he was being petty and only looking for a way to let out his frustration but it wasn’t Max’s fault that Leon was in love with him. And it wasn’t Max’s fault that Leon had been stupid enough to think that this wouldn’t end up hurting him more than it did him any good.

Mats let out a laugh. “Couldn’t be too weak if you fell for him, could it?”

“Touché!” Max raised his bottle towards Mats like a toast before taking another swig from it.

Leon sighed and turned his attention towards his phone that he had been mindlessly playing with. He wasn’t interested in joining their banter, especially not when it was at his expense. Usually he wouldn’t care - he knew that they weren’t serious - and maybe make a comment of his own but at the moment he really didn’t need that. He scrolled through Instagram and liked some pictures without being really looking at them before exiting the app and staring at his home screen until it went black.

In the spur of the moment, he fished out the napkin which was really crumpled up by now and typed in the number. Once he had saved it to his phone he started typing a message because why the hell not? Mats was right, the dare wasn’t complete if he hadn’t gotten a real number.

 

00:49

Hey, this is the weird guy who asked for your number. I’m sorry to tell you this but I was lying to you. I had to do it for a dare. Just thought you should know in case you were waiting for a message from your one true love.

 

“Hey, who are you texting?” Max leaned over his shoulder to try and take a look at what he was doing.

“I’m testing the number.” Leon answered curtly, not taking his eyes off his phone. He read the message once more and then pressed ‘Send’.

He also seemed to have gotten back Mats interest as well. “Really? Did she answer yet?”

“Not yet.”

They all stared at the screen for what seemed like an eternity until Max finally broke the silence. “Well, what did I tell you? My dear boyfriend here has zero game.” He said while patting him on the back.

Just in that moment, Leon’s phone lit up with a new message.

 

**Dare girl**

00:53

I figured.

 

“Ha! Zero game, my ass!” He exclaimed triumphantly and shoved the phone in Max’s face. Max grimaced and swatted him away, clearly not very excited about being proven wrong.

 

00:53

I’m sorry

 

“Well, you seem occupied so I’m gonna go get more to drink.” Max got up, swaying a bit from the momentum. He seemed to be a bit more intoxicated than Leon had initially assumed. Mats noticed it as well and stood up, too. “I should probably make sure he doesn’t break anything. Furniture or bones.” He said and followed Max into the crowd. Leon thought about doing the same but his phone vibrated again, demanding his attention.

 

**Dare girl**

00:54

Oh, don’t worry. Tbh I’m not really expecting to meet my “one true love” via text :D But I still feel honoured that out of all the people at the bar you chose to approach me first. I don’t get footballers asking for my number every day, you know? ;)

00:54

Wait, you know who I am?

**Dare girl**

00:55

I might be a woman, but I’m not some cave man living under a rock, of course I know who you are!

00:55

That’s not how I meant it. I know that a lot of women are interested in football.

**Dare girl**

00:55

How did you mean it then?

00:56

Idk I just don’t assume ppl know who I am…? It’s not like I’m Tommy. Everyone knows his face. But me? I’m still new here and if you’re not interested in Schalke then you might not remember or even know me.

**Dare girl**

00:56

Aww, look how humble you are! I like it! But I think you’ll have to get used to a lot more ppl recognising you from now on. I mean, you play for the national team…

00:56

You’re probably right…

 00:57

What’s your name btw? I completely forgot to ask

**Dare girl**

00:57

Maya

 

Leon quickly changed the name he’d typed in earlier before texting back.

 

00:57

Nice to meet you, Maya :)

**Maya**

00:57

Nice to meet you, too, Leon :)

00:58

So what’s the deal with the dare? And didn’t you have a match tonight? Aren’t you supposed to be asleep right now?

00:58

Wow, curious much? Who are you? My mother?  Löw? :D

 00:58

Yes, we did have a match tonight that we won which is why we’re celebrating right now and Musti got the idea to play truth or dare. Don’t tell our coaches, though…

**Maya**

00:58

Of course not! My lips are sealed.

00:58

Thanks, haha :D

**Maya**

00:59

So… did I get this right? The national team has cute nicknames for each other and plays truth or dare in their free time? Gosh, I could make so much money if I sold all this information. Please tell me more! I just gotta call Bild real quick.

Leon paused. Although she was most likely joking, he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure. What the hell was he doing texting a random girl at 1 am? He didn’t even know her nor was he even remotely interested in her, obviously. What if she was a reporter of some yellow press magazine and was currently rubbing her hands at how gullible Leon was, telling her all the insider information about the team? He really had to be more careful.

He decided to put away the phone for now and go mingle with his teammates. He hadn’t really had the chance to talk to any of them, what with his ongoing Max-kiss crisis and all.

He got to his feet, not sure which group to join yet when a hand holding out a cup, which according to the strong smell was filled with some sort of alcoholic mixture, blocked his way. He looked up to find Jule offering him the cup with a smile while holding another one in his left hand. “I thought you could loosen up a bit. You seem kinda tense today.”

Leon hesitated for a moment but after everything that had happened tonight he guessed he deserved a drink. “Thanks.” He took a sip and tried not to make a face. Vodka red bull had never been one of his favourites.

He kept walking, eventually ending up talking to Toni and Sami who were one of the few that were sober enough to have a decent conversation with, which was exactly what he needed right now to take his mind off of all the drama. They talked about the match, analysing different aspects of it and they even gave him some tips and advice, which Leon greatly appreciated since they both played the midfield position meaning they knew what they were talking about. But the false feeling of normality was only short-lived as Max stumbled into him a few minutes later, accidentally spilling some of his drink on Leon’s shirt and pants.

“Sorry, didn’t see you there.” He looked up, meeting Leon’s eyes. “Oh, Leon, it’s you! My saviour!” Leon wasn’t sure whether Max was referring to their arrangement or the ankle thing from earlier. “Done texting…” he seemed to think for a second but gave up “…whoever it was you were texting?”

“Uh, yeah.” He had almost forgotten about that already. “I was just discussing today’s match with Toni and Sami.” He gestured towards them and it was only then that Max noticed them. “Oh… hey! Did I interrupt you? What were you just saying?” He leaned against Leon for support and took another sip of his drink.

“I was just gonna tell Leon how I think he seems to do better when he has someone with him on the pitch that he knows and is comfortable with. Like you for example!” Sami explained. “Obviously not when you’re drunk out of your mind like right now.” He added.

But Max didn’t hear or simply ignored that last bit. “What can I say? We’re a team! We’re like Batman and Robin.” He flashed them a broad smile, pulling Leon closer by the waist, oblivious to the glower he gave him. Leon knew exactly who Max thought was Batman and who was Robin in this situation.

“Isn’t that like Marco and Auba’s thing?” Toni asked.

“What is?” Marco stepped in, sauntering over to them with a glass of champagne. Where the hell did he get that? Everyone else just had simple plastic cups filled with vodka mixtures or beer bottles.

In response, Toni simply nodded his head in their direction. “Max just claimed he and Leon were like Batman and Robin.”

Marco laughed and put on a sympathetic expression. “Sorry guys, those positions are already taken. You gotta think of something else.”

“Whatever!” Max countered. “So we’re like Captain America and The Winter Soldier then. Marvel’s way better than DC anyway.”

“Ah, so which one of you is the villain?” Marco seemed thoroughly entertained by the things Max was uttering in his intoxicated state.

“Excuse you, Bucky's not a villain!” Max slurred pointing an accusing finger at Marco. “He was brainwashed, not a single thing he did was his fault! How would you feel if you were frozen and unfrozen for seventy years and-”

Leon responded to Marco’s raised eyebrows with a sigh and gave all of them an apologetic smile before interrupting Max’s gush of words. “I think that’s enough for today. Come on, let’s leave.” He took one of Max’s arms, putting it around his own shoulder to support him which was a bit awkward considering their height difference and made to leave. “God, you’re such a lightweight, Meyer. What did I tell you about mixing drinks?”

“Not to do it?” Max asked as if he truly wasn’t sure if that was the right answer.

“Exactly! You can’t switch between vodka and beer on one evening.” They were at the door and Leon opened it carefully, making sure no one was patrolling the hallway before slipping out.

“You’re gonna have a massive headache tomorrow. Why did you do that?” Leon asked, slowly dragging him towards the elevator.

“I did- didn’t  wanna think-” He stopped midsentence, like he forgot what he wanted to say - or didn’t want to say it.

“Think what?” Leon pressed the elevator button with his free hand, still constantly checking his surroundings for anyone that might see them.

“Nothin’.”

-

They eventually managed to get to their room without any disturbances even though Leon had to forcibly shut Max up when they walked past the staff’s rooms. Finally inside, he walked over to Max’s bed and gently put him down. He removed Max’s shoes and hesitated before also taking off his t-shirt. He wasn’t however bold enough to take off his trousers so he just yanked out the blanket from under him and tucked him in before turning to undress as well.

He was about to get into bed and finally call it a day when Max made him pause.

“Stay with me.”

Leon wasn’t sure whether he had understood correctly. He cleared his throat but found that it didn’t help at all. “Uh, I’ll be here all night, don’t worry.”

“No. Here.” Max patted the space next to him on his bed, making it clear what he meant.

Leon’s heart started to pound uncontrollably. He had had first hand experiences with drunk Max many times before and he usually turned into a clingy mess but this was on a new level, even for Max.

It would be a mistake, he knew that. He had already gotten too close once today to the point where it almost tore his heart out. And Max wasn’t really in his senses right now. But then again, if he already allowed himself to be kissed by Max, he might as well share a bed with him. Just so he could tick off all of his fantasies - well most of them - in one night and then never talk or think about it ever again.

Tentatively, he climbed into Max’s bed, making sure to leave space between them. He lay there, trying not to think about what all of this might mean for their friendship. Leon was slowly getting to the point where being around Max physically hurt him, especially now that they’ve started this whole ordeal of pretending to be a couple, but being apart from him was even more unbearable. He didn’t think he could stand losing his best friend, even if it meant staying just that: best friends.

But now they had broken Leon’s only rule just to keep this lie going and he was starting to lose his mind. What even was the point of this anymore? It’s not like it was a brilliant idea for a prank anyway. Not when he and Max were the ones who kept getting in awkward situations instead of the people they actually wanted to prank.

“I’m sorry for kissing you.” Leon was still deep in thought when Max’s small voice startled him out of it. He’d thought he was asleep already but apparently he wasn’t. That or he had started talking in his sleep.

“It’s okay.” He mumbled, not in the mood or condition to discuss this right now, and hoped Max would leave it at that.

“No, it’s not!” Max insisted, his word still slightly slurred by the alcohol in his system. “You agreed to do this with me under the condition that we didn’t kiss but I still forced you to when I could’ve chosen anyone else.”

_So why didn’t you?_

Leon bit his tongue and took a deep breath. “Max, you didn’t force me and you also couldn’t have chosen anyone else. If you’d done that it would’ve made everyone extremely suspicious.”

“But-”

“Go to sleep now. We can talk about it tomorrow.” He wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to talk about it but at least his words seemed to calm Max enough for him to shut up and fall asleep in a matter of minutes.

Unfortunately, Leon wasn’t as lucky. His racing thoughts kept him awake well into the night.

_Why didn’t you, Max?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me what you think! Oh, and definitely check out the song by Voyce from which I took the title for this chapter. I've been listening to it nonstop these past few days :)


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